Wii Shopping Channel down

Looks like the wii shopping channel is down or under maintenance as it says on the error message. Wondering if its due to overwhelming response for Tetris Party? I'm one of them trying to download it. Can't wait to get my hands on it!

Mango Cafe - Lunch Review

Mango Cafe Entrance

I am a big fan of thai food, and to see one at reasonable prices is a big plus. The pictures on their webpage look very inviting and the prices won't burn a hole in your wallet. I decided to drop by Asia City on a friday afternoon for a late lunch. Surprisingly the cafe was quite crowded (the airconditioned room anyway). First impression before going in was pleasant. Things changed once we sat down, the noise from all the patrons bounced and echoed over the walls causing it to sound like a a busy street market amplified. Not too disturbed by that, we continued to order, seeing it was pretty packed, the food must be pretty good.

We looked and the menu and ordered the following

• Green Mango Salad
• Phad Thai (My all time favourite thai dish)
• Pineapple Fried Rice
• Fluffy Fish with Mango Sauce
• Spicy Fried Long Beans
• 1 chinese tea and water

Now the story starts.. seeing that it was crowded, we expected that the food would be slightly delayed to come out.. *hint* *hint*

Let's start the clock, 1.15pm we placed our order.
1.30pm the drinks finally arrived, mind you the cup was full of fingerprints of oil
1.50pm phad thai arrives, cold and without any utensils. Requested the staff from some small plates n utensils.
1.55pm patience wears out and decide to go and collect the plates n utensils myself, and well, they ran out of forks and the "clean" plates had rice on it.
2.10pm pineapple rice and fluffy fish arrives, by this time pretty much all the tables were done with their meals.
2.15pm the mango salad arrives. funny thing is.. the mango salad is a starter, so shall we add a new section to the menu called finisher?


Ok enough ranting bout the service. So, how's the taste? after all, sometimes you have to wait for good food. Well let's see..
The phad thai was reasonably nice to eat if it was served hot. I remember that I when I ate this elsewhere, i was served on the side some chili flakes and sugar. This is the first time i'm eating phad thai in kk, so please tell me where I can find a better one.

Cold Phad Thai

The pineapple rice was soggy and extremely buttery with a small hint of pineapple, I think they should have called it butter rice instead.

Buttery Pineapple Fried Rice

Fluffy fish was not worth the money at all, it is just fried shredded "fish" with more than its weight in flour. There is almost no fish taste in there, it is definately not worth the RM12 charged.

Fluffy flour.. i mean fish

We finished off with our starter, the long awaited green mango salad finally came, the taste is what you expect from thai food, an infusion of sweet and sour really get's your tastebuds working. i would consider this a consolation prize to a disappointing day.

Yummy mango salad

So what's the verdict? Would I go back? Yes i would. Why? I believe that they were just having a bad day, shortage of staff (so the staff tells me) resulted in poor service and hopefully the poor quality of food served. Although they were understaffed, they were polite and apologised for the delay with a smile while running around serving the tables. I will visit them a second time and hopefully I would have a different opinion by then. As for now, of all the dishes I tried, I would only order the phad thai or the mango salad again, and pray that the phad thai will be served hot this time. Oh wait, i forgot one thing, their desserts simply look so delicious, I didn't have time to try because I was running late for a meeting, but will have to give it a go next time round.

BBQ Hotpot opens its doors at 1Borneo

For lovers of Beijing BBQ Steamboat at Tun Fuad, a branch has opened up in 1Borneo with a new name Kampung Nelayan BBQ Hotpot.


Just like Beijing, there are several varieties of meats and seafood to choose from. For those who are concerned, this place serves no pork :)

What's it gonna cost you?

RM32++ for BBQ Hotpot.

RM18++ for Buffet Lunch, note that this doesn't include the hotpot.

They are also open in the morning serving nasi lemak and other morning favourites like Konlo Mee, fry noodle etc. As far as i know this is the only buffet place in 1Borneo at the moment.

Petrol Station Strike rumors false

According to The Star, it has confirmed with Petrol operators that the petrol station going on strike is false and is purely rumors. Check out the article here.

An extract from the star:

"Shell retail stations nationwide continue with normal operating hours,” a Sabah Shell spokesman said in a statement

Petrol Station Strike over Commission

Long queues again in Malaysia as rumor spreads that petrol stations are going on strike today or tomorrow. Petrol Stations here in Kota Kinabalu are swamped with cars as rumors spread about the strikes. So far unable to confirm whether its true or not. Guess better to be safe than sorry.

Only references to the Petrol Stations disputes are at the following

• Malay Mail
  
• The Star

An extract from today's Malay Mail

"In fact, in a show of force, some 3,500 petrol stations had threatened to shut down for eight hours on June 26. However, yesterday, PDAM called off the strike after it was hinted at that the government had agreed to the association’s demands."

So why the panic? Could it be a hoax? The latest sms rumors I heard was that the petrol station would be closed for 3 days. How true, probably we will only find out tonight.

Losing 80lbs with a McDonald's Diet

Dubbed the McMiracle Diet or Chris Coleson's McDiet, Chris Coleson has managed to lose 80lbs on a McDonald's diet, it sure is different when compared with the Super Size Me movie a while back.

Checkout what's on his menu

Breakfast
Strong Black Coffee

Lunch
Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken
Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap® (Grilled)
Apple Dippers

Snack
Apple Dippers or Walnut Salad

Dinner
Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken or any other salad
Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap® (Grilled)
Walnut Salad

Lets compare the calories and sodium content of these.

		Calories	Sodium (mg)
	Apple Dippers	35	0
	Walnut Salad	210	60
	Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap (Grilled)	260	830
	South West Salad with Grilled Chicken	320	960

Nutritional values taken from the McDonald's

The average calorie intake of American adults is around 2000 calories. If you sum up Chris Coleson McDiet you'll find that it works out to be around this range.

Mario's Pizza at 1Borneo

Decided to brave going into 1Borneo for the weekend. Was rather worried that there would be problems with parking. Anyway, managed to find a parking and took a look around to see if there were any new stalls in 1Borneo.

Well, after walking around, this store Mario's Pizza caught my attention. I really love pizza and this stall sells snack sized portions

Picked up quite a crowd

Plenty of patrons, waiting and deciding what to order

I ordered three different pizza's. The heating up of the pizza's was slow because they only have one oven. Duno what the owner was thinking having only one oven. The staff kept opening and closing the oven, leaving the oven to unevenly heat the pizza's. This caused the service to slow down due to staff all queueing up to use the oven. I thought it'd probably be better to have multiple inexpensive mini ovens to speed up the heating up process. I had to wait at least 5 minutes before I my pizza's were ready.. Thats a bit long just for warming it up.

Workers queueing for the oven

What I liked was that they wrapped the pizza in some greaseproof paper for you to carry around the mall and munch at the same time. The staff was polite and did apologise for the delay in heating up the pizza.

Overall I found the price quite reasonable (RM2.60-3.20 for a slice of pizza). Upstairs in Tasty Food Village your able to get a slice of pizza for RM3 and double the size. Unfortunately, in Tasty Food Village they only heat up the pizza upon request and well, the taste just isn't as nice as Mario's. Well leave you all to decide which is better :)

My Wii Fit has arrived!

Got a call from the Pos Malaysia today to say that my package has arrived. Having waited a week since my cousin sent the Wii Fit from the US I quickly grabbed my car keys and drove down to KK town pos central to pickup my parcel. Woohoo.. no tax. I was worried bout any duty fees..

The moment I got home the package was torn off in a flash. I have been waiting forever for this and couldn't wait to try it out. I quickly tore out the batteries that came with the unit and plugged it in and hit the power button. Oh no, nothing happened?!?! How could this be? Blown away almost RM500 and waited so long and it doesn't work?? Could my luck be so bad? Well.. it wasn't.. seems that in my excitement I put the batteries the wrong way. Gosh, what a relief. Thats what you get for not concentrating.

Anyway, I poweredup my wii and followed the instructions on the manual to sync the wiifit to the wii console just as you would the first time with the wiimotes. After trying for about 5minutes repeating the same steps over n over again, I was unable to get a sync. Desperate to reset the sync settings by holding down the sync button of the wii console for 10secs. This means I lose sync with my existing wiimotes. I ran the sync again and got my wiimotes, but was still unable to sync the wii fit to run.

Frustrated, I sat down and started to think.. after i'm an engineer I should act logically and break down the problem. Well, let's try putting in the wii fit disk. When I did that, it prompted me to do an update which I did. Maybe this will help my wiifit board. So I tried the sync again and well.. still the same result.. no sync.

Ok.. Last chance, i ran the wii fit cd and a nice screen popped up asking me to connect my wii fit. I powered it up and did a sync and wallah it works! the blue light of the wii fit board remained steady and I was ready to use it. Well, it was a big headache for me just to set the wii fit up, hope it wasn't the same for any others. Now I gotta find some accessories here in KK if there are any :p

FLOOD!!

Looks like its flooding again. Just outside my place its already flooded, the road leading to KK highschool and Lido is covered in muddy rain water that overflowed from the open drain. Outside my house also the drain looks like its gonna overflow.. Hope high tide passes soon.. don't think the drain can tahan much longer

Before

After

Petrol price causes massive jams and chaos

Been driving around to take a look at the impact of the sudden announcement by our PM. There is chaos everywhere. At this point in time might not be worth to queue up to pump. The queues at some places stretch to almost a kilometer. Take for example the Petronas station along the way from Lintas to the Terminal 1 Airport, the queue stretched way pass the Citreon dealer. There were lots of people cutting in from the curbside and on the right lane causing some deadlocks and traffic to stop.
I think the next time the PM decides to announce this mayb he should get the traffic police to go to major petrol stations to direct traffic flow. Glad to be home after a long jam.

Petrol and Diesel Price increase in Malaysia announced!

Looks like there is a mad rush for petrol and diesel as news spreads about the increase in price on 5th of June. Here's the story.. As of midnight tonight there will be a major increase in fuel prices in Malaysia.

Fuel	Old	New	Percentage increase
Petrol	RM1.90	RM2.70	42%
Diesel	RM1.58	RM2.58	63%

*Fuel prices based on Petronas prices

For those who drive to work everyday have to find ways of cutting costs. But I can imagine that the public transport sector such as buses are going to be hit hard. I am not sure if the government is helping them cushion the impact(Taxi's are receiving help from government), maybe someone can enlighten me.

Transport and logistics are also going to be heavily affected a few friends in transporting goods from KK to Tawau are going to have a nightmare with these sort of increments.

But wait.. The government isn't going to leave us hanging dry. Looks like there are still some subsidies available to most of us. Let's take a look at how it works now.
Whenever you renew your road tax the government will send you rebate via a money order.

Vehicle Type	Rebate/year
Cars > 2000cc	NA
Cars <>	RM625
Motorbikes > 150cc	RM150

I personally am not ready for the price increases. I was under the impression that the increases would be from August and they would be introduced incrementally. Or is this is the planned increment that the government is planning? How will the people react to this government? The next few months is sure gonna be scary. Looks like time to ask for a pay rise from the boss.

I'll leave you with pictures of the long queues encountered near the hospital in KK while having a last taste of old price fuel.

Wow busy day today

Queue queue queue

30mins later, almost there..

Toilet advertising

Was walking around 1Borneo again today when nature called. This might not be new to some, but this is the first time i've seen a tv screen on well.. err urinals. Guess its not a bad way to advertise since you will be pretty focused on looking at the advertisement.

While I was using the facilities, they were showing movie traliers. Not a bad idea.. Maybe next time they'll be showing 1Borneo stall promotions

1Borneo Free Cinema Tickets

For those who don't know yet, Golden Screen Cinemas is celebrating their opening by offering free tickets from May 31st till June 4th. Before you rush off to 1Borneo to claim your free show, make sure you grab a newspaper and cut out the coupon first. One coupon entitles you to 2 complimentary tickets. Be quick before the seats run out!

Tasty Food Court, 1Borneo 2nd take

1Borneo or One Borneo (I still prefer the later) is suppose to have a soft openning on the 8th of June. Today I popped in to have a look at the progress. The construction is going very rapidly at the moment, cleanup and major shop renovations are on the way. Since the shops are not ready for business, might as well have lunch there.

So walked over to Tasty Food Village and was surprised a small crowd over there. The patrons I assume are mainly workers, contracters and curious onlookers like me that decided to venture into this unopened mall. Being a public holiday today, I saw a lot of families with kids roaming around the mall and eventually dining in the only food outlet that is open in the mall.


Well I can say that the signs remind me of Singapore food courts. Guess most of the investors are probably from Singapore anyway. The furniture is fantastic. Nothing like i've ever seen before in food courts. When compared with Wisma Merdeka or Karamunsing.. well.. there is no comparison. Its a little classier here and I guess we'll be paying for it an extra premium for our food because of that. Well I can say seats and tables are very comfortable to dine on and I absolutely love the design.

Upon first stepping into the food court, you will need to approach the coupon counter and buy coupons in bundles of RM5. Yes, RM5 is the minimum you must purchase in order to buy anything.. even if it means RM1 kuih. Don't worry but you're able to get a refund if you return the coupon on the same day. Its a bit troublesome when you want to make small purchases.

Anyway, the front part of the food court consists of a few snack stores. You're able to buy kuih, Curry puffs, Chinese doughs, pizza's and crepes.
The only store that was open was Yummy Bites. I tried some of this on my previous visit and found the kuih to be of average taste. My favourite is the green one with rice on top (I forgot the name) has a nice balance pandan sweetness n ricey saltiness.


Well enough bout the atmosphere.. after all looks can be deceiving. So, how's the food?First up on the list was the mini steamboat. The presentation is quite nice and fiery. Notice the flame firing up on top. I was worried it was going to melt the plastic. Impressive. Unfortunately I didn't have a taste, but the portion looks like it would fit well for two people. Just add two bowls of rice and share. I think this cost around RM13. Have to give it a go next time.

Flaming steamboat

Next to this there is a Roasted BBQ store. Since they don't serve pork in the food court, meaning no charsiu is available. So the next best thing is the duck. For RM9 your able to get roast duck with noodle. The presentation is nice and the portion is decent. Taste wise its a little on the salty side, but i'd give it a good 4/5 stars. Having said that, I wouldn't eat this very often as it would burn a deep hole in my wallet.

yumm.. mouth waterring

Another stall we tried was the beef noodle store. I've been hearing great things about this new store, unfortunately it was a bit hyped up. The presentation is boring and very unappealing. Tastewise is ok.. but its nothing when compared with our local ngau cap stores. It has a very mild beefy flavor. This might appeal to some but not to me, after all this is Tasty food village and i'd expect some pretty tasty food. I'd give it a 2.5/5 stars since it cost RM6.50 and looked like it was prepared by a real mainland chinese. I guess things just aren't as tasty over there.
Having a few coupons left, we tried "The Toast" shop. A slice of bread will set you back RM2. We tried one peanut butter and one kaya. The verdict, disappointed. The bread was stale and lack any fluffiness that it should have had. Once the bread is bad, nothing more can be said. 1/5 stars for having the nerve to serve stale bread to people. I gave 1 star because it was edible. Definately wouldn't be going back to this store.

The "Stale" Toast

There is also a Dimsum shop selling chicken pau's. They taste just like char siu pau's but with chicken and I must say they were very nice. Just RM2 for a small pau is a bit pricey for me. It was gobbled up before i could take any pictures. 3.5/5 stars.

If your thirsty be prepared to pay around RM1.50 - RM2.00 for a drink. Its a reasonable price for an airconditioned food court.

The cheapest lunch you probably can get is at the mixed rice store where you're able to get 2Veg + Rice for RM4 or 1Veg + 1Meat + 1Rice for RM4.50. They have 28 different varieties of dishes to choose from and the aroma really got my mouth watering.

I have to comment that the place is very clean. Yes.. I know this is new and it hasn't really been tested with a big crowd. They have quite a number of staff standby to pick up your plates though. Since they weren't many people around, my plates were scooped up the moment I finished. They were polite though, asking me first before picking it up, just like in a restaurant.

Eyes scanning for empty plates

Looks like Tasty Food Village is in a league of its on when compared to any food court in Sabah, let alone Malaysia itself. Modern furnishing, efficient staff and a wide variety of food will surely make this a popular spot for hungry shoppers.

New Tasty Food Court in KK

Got a sneak peak of the new food court in One Borneo today. Unfortunately the electricity supply to the food court today was switched off, probably due to the ongoing construction there.


Tasty Food Court works on a coupon system. You buy coupons at the front counter and if you have any left over coupons you can refund it at the end of the food court. The tables and seating are made locally and are beautiful. I will drop a picture next time. Looks like they are all finger jointed. Nothing that I've seen before here in KK.

Managed to try one shops were open. Yummy Bites a shop selling kuih and cupcakes. All kuih is RM1 and cupcakes RM1.30 at time of writing. There are a couple other shops there but it was dark so all the pictures didn't come out well. Will make another trip there when the lighting is up.

No water in Taman Sutera

Since morning no water today. Dun remember the last time that happened. I wonder what happened.. can hear some digging sounds nearby, wonder if the water pipe got any problems. Hope the water comes back soon..

Budget photocopy on the go

Recently there was a need to photocopy documents while entering kampung areas. And well.. not all kampung have access to a photocopy machine. So whats the plan? Off to Karamunsing (KK version of Malaysia's Low Yat or Singapore's Sim Lim) to look for a printer. I was recommended an HP model printer. Since I was on a budget and printer in a car plus vibrations I don't know how long it will last, I bought the HP F4185 model. It has all the things that I need. Scanner and printer = photocopy machine.


Now I'm left with one problem.. Power.. That's where the power inverter comes in. I came across a 150Watt inverter which should be more than enough for powering a printer.


Rushed back home to give it a try.. well it works :) not only that. there is some spare wattage for me to plug in my handphone charger and my laptop if needed. Well its nothing new.. just a bit exciting to be more mobile now :)

Total Damage: RM239 (Printer) + RM78 (Inverter) = RM317
Bought from Boulevard IT.

Earthquake in Tawau, Sabah

Just heard from a friend that there was an earthquake North West of Tawau this afternoon around 3pm. This is the first time I've heard of an actual earthquake here. It registered 4.3 on the ritcher scale. This is considered a minor one, but anything about 5 could cause damage to property. Let's hope it ends there.

Check out the earthquake list at the Meteorological Department for more info

Wii in Kota Kinabalu?

I wonder if there are many shops selling Wii accessories here in KK. So far I've been looking around and I cant find any. The closest think is some sort of Wii clone in Karamunsing :(

IKEA in Kota Kinabalu

Well, not quite, but close. Other than a shop in Karamunsing I found that does sell some IKEA furniture, there is now a shop called Living Concepts selling almost 100% IKEA products.

You know you got hypermarkets and supermarkets, well this is the supermarket version, they have a much smaller range of IKEA products. As an IKEA fan, I am very happy that someone has decided to bring in IKEA here. Previously whenever I was in KL i would use up 15kg of my baggage allowance just to ship IKEA stuff over here. The showroom is similar to IKEA's layout, of course to a smaller scale.

Hope they do well and expand the product range :)

Streamyx is down :( well.. sort off

Around mid day today streamyx started to go haywire.. I could connect but what do u know.. I cant do anything.. Surfing the internet has random success, getting the google page to show is such a luxury. emails can't be sent via streamyx but i'm able to send using my jaring account. Well.. What happened?

I decided to call customer service (even though I've had almost no service from them). The moment I called, there was an automated voice saying that there are service disruptions in Sandakan, Tawau from Sabah and some other states. KK should be ok, so I proceeded to speak to technical support. I spoke to a lady and as usual, they go through the script, please check your modem lights, please off and on the modem, please use adsl without filter, bla bla bla it went on like this for 10minutes. I guess by that time their script ran out. After wasting 10 minutes of my life( plus time on hold), they told me they would lodge a technical report. Well.. doesn't solve my problem, but hey, at least i can add to their statistics. Oh well, no internet for tonite..

A few hours later I got a call from a 2nd level technical support guy who explained to me why I am paying for internet that doesn't work. Seems they have problems with remote access to the servers in KL. I'm not sure how that affects the internet here, but at least they called. Unfortunately, they do not know how long this problem will take to fix, so I have to bear with it..

Since I trade US, I need the internet at night.. Well.. DiGi comes to the rescue.. RM6 I can surf all I want at err.. well.. some sort of speed. At least I can use MSN and blog now hehe.. Hope the net comes back

Lunch at Gunter's Gasthaus

Been hearing good things about this place. So finally decided to give this place a try. Took my mother there for a late mother's day lunch :p Had trouble finding the turn though, luckily there was a sign at the front of the junction. We parked in front of the kindergarten, didn't really know where the place was, could have parked closer. 


My first impressions? Looks like a home style restaurant, these are plentiful in Jakarta, although the interior is much nicer here. 

 

What's different bout this place? Well for one thing, you can eat up to three dishes and all you pay is for the most expensive meal you ordered and of course this only applies if your not sharing :p

We ordered the sausages and the boneless chicken (no 7 and 8 on the menu)

They also have an buffet salad bar. When we went, there was only 3 choices. a typical green salad, shredded carrots and a potato onion salad which i've never tried before. Overall its decent. Very home style of presentation. 

Salad Bar

I had a bite of the Masthuhn Hawaii, it was pretty good.  Accompanying it was a bowl of rice,  but i think it went better by itself. 

Masthun Hawaii (Boneless Chicken)

The sausages to me were the best as i'm a big fan of gourmet sausages (not those factory manufactured frozen stuff in Giant). The sausages went well with the mash potatos, onions and bacon. Fantastic combination. I wished there was more of the mash potato's though, it was just so soft and flavorful, sort of a melting feeling when it touches your tongue, absolutely lovely.  

Nurnberg Sausages

As sausages aren't the most tummy filling meals, I ordered a second dish called the chicken cordon bleu.  This unfortunately was quite disappointing, the chicken was dry and i expected cheese to be oozing out when i cut the chicken. Instead I got a some watery cheese. Maybe this is the way its supposed to be, but I've tried this before elsewhere and it was way different. 

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience and the food is priced reasonably and if your able to eat more than one dish, i'd consider this place a cheap eat. The bad side is I'd probably won't order the Cordon Bleu anymore though, just not to my taste. The atmosphere is very family like and warm. I'd go there again in a flash.  

Looks like another blogger Elsa has written a review about Gunter's and she did mention about the cordon bleu and the cheese :p